François Bordes was an eminent French prehistorian born in 1919 whose writings have contributed greatly to the study of the ancient Paleolithic and who was a precursor of flint knapping and prehistoric tools.
Francis Carsac is his nom de plume, he is the author of seven Science Fiction novels in the planet-operas and space-opera genre. Most of them have been translated all over Europe, they are regularly republished in France but have never been translated in the USA (« What would they do, over there, with an author translated from French, when they barely manage to publish everything they write at home? »)
He also wrote 19 short stories and translated The long Remembering by his friend Poul Anderson.
He died suddenly in 1981 in Tucson Arizona at the age of 61.

Francis Carsac often travelled to the USA and on these occasions he had stayed several times at Poul Anderson’s home, he was also a friend of Lyon Sprague de Camp and met Jack Vance. The Andersons, de Camps and Vances all visited François Bordes in his house in Bordeaux (South West France). Jack Vance in his autobiography refers to a visit in this anecdote :
 « Several years earlier, at Poul Anderson’s house in Orinda, we had been introduced to François Bordes, an eminent French archeologist. We now visited him at his home in Bordeaux. He graciously showed us many implements from the Stone Age, and then took us out to dine at a restaurant nearby. During the meal I was served a little pot full of little things that looked like worms swimming in tomato sauce. Not wishing to appear gauche I ate these things, only to learn afterwards that that they were baby eels. I consider myself a brave man. »


L Sprague de Camp describes one of his stays at Bordes:

« On another occasion, we visited him with a family of our friends. At that time, if you wanted to dig in his caverns, you had to get his permission. When we arrived at the caverns, Francis discovered that they had been dug without permission. The identity of the culprit was easy to guess because he had been accompanied by a little boy who had forgotten his cap with his name on it. François, who was easily boiling over, rushed to the village police station, woke up the policeman who was dozing at the office, shouting: « Sir! There is a most horrible crime! You must immediately send a report to the Paris Security Police, office number so many! In five copies! »
The astonished cop explained that he was not aware of such an offence, that he had never been in such a situation and that he did not know how to write a report.
– You can write, can’t you? Francois roars.
– Yes, sir, I can write.
– Then I dictate and you write. Five copies!
The harassed officer put the forms and carbons into his typewriter and started typing. Witnesses to the attack had to be provided, and these were John and Magdalen Dale. The policeman wrote their names correctly but when he asked for their address and heard that they lived in Gulph Mills, Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, the poor man was in despair. He cried out:
– But that address is not French!
– It is not your business; go on, then! » said Francis implacably.
– But is it even in Christian country? Is it a civilized country?
– Sir! said Francis sternly. Mr. and Mrs. Dale live near Philadelphia. In Philadelphia there is a French consul; and where there is a French consul, there is civilization!
Can one imagine anything more French? »


His last novel La Vermine du Lion is dedicated to his two friends L. Sprague De Camp and Poul Anderson with these words:

To L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP
     from whom I borrowed his bishtars…

    and to POUL ANDERSON
    apologizing for giving an ancestor
    to Sir Dominic Flandry

Francis Carsac’s novels

Sur un monde stérile, (On a sterile world) 1997 (Written 1945).
Carsac’s first novel, written while he was in the resistance: on discovering Mars, its black, red and yellow martians…

Ceux de nulle part (Those from nowhere) 1954
The Human Lands League Federation fights against the Misliks: mysterious creatures who have come from another galaxy to extinguish the stars.

Les Robinsons du Cosmos (The robinsons of cosmos) 1955
Following a cosmic cataclysm, a French village is moved to a foreign planet and the new inhabitants will have to discover its resources and especially its threats..

Terre en fuite (Runaway Earth ) 1960
The Earth must flee from its Sun which will explode in nova, but what will Men from Elsewhere think of this sudden irruption of Men… for them from Elsewhere?

Pour patrie l’espace (for homeland, space) 1962
A soldier of the imperial army is gathered on a space ark belonging to the « people of the stars », descendants of those who had fled the Earth, persecuted by the Empire..

Ce monde est nôtre (This world is ours) 1962
A sequel to Those from Nowhere, centuries later. The League of Human Lands arbitrates conflicts on planets with several different races..

La Vermine du lion (the lion’s vermin) 1966
On the planet Eldorado the indigenous people are ruthlessly exploited by the International Mining Bureau (IMB). Barbarity is not in the extraterrestrials, it is in the man himself. Teraï and his modified lion go to war. A precursor to the film Avatar

ARTWORK GALLERIES

FRENCH COVERS

EUROPEAN COVERS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Sources :

Photos

Title: L. Sprague de Camp holding First Fandom plaque, St. Louiscon Date: 1969
Collection: Jay Kay Klein photographs and papers on science fiction fandom
Owning Institution: UC Riverside, Library, Special Collections and University Archives
Source: Calisphere
Date of access: March 28 2020 08:24
Permalink: https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/86086/n2445m72/

https// :www.jackvance.com  (colorisation JL Esteban)

Une vie entre préhistoire et futur – Natacha Vas Deyres 2017 ( academia.eu)
Francis Carsac, Oeuvres complètes, Bruxelles, éd. Claude Lefrancq, 2 tomes, 1996, 1997.

Title: L. Sprague de Camp coming to the podium, Tricon

Date: 1966

Collection: Jay Kay Klein photographs and papers on science fiction fandom

Owning Institution: UC Riverside, Library, Special Collections and University Archives

Source: Calisphere

Date of access: March 28 2020 08:05

Permalink: https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/86086/n2qr4vg6/